Film Review
Life Stinks marked the nadir
of Mel Brooks's career as a film director, a critical and commercial
failure from which he had great difficulty recovering. Yet,
watching the film today, this seems hard to believe. Brooks's
most thoughtful and sincere film,
Life
Stinks is a well-judged satire which delivers a powerful
indictment of the socially harmful policies of the Reagan and Bush
administrations and compels us to give some serious thought to the
plight of the homeless and the failings of our society. It is a
film with a clear, unambiguous message - capitalism (at its worst)
stinks. How much better life would be if we did not allow
ourselves to become slaves to the Moloch of corporate greed, if
creating communal well-being rather than individual wealth was our
goal. The film was highly topical when it was released during the recession of the early 1990s,
but it is somewhat more so today. How depressing that so little
has changed in the intervening twenty years. Except, perhaps,
that capitalism has lost some of its deceptive allure.
Life Stinks is certainly quite
a radical departure for Mel Brooks, away from the boisterous spoofs
that brought him fame and fortune in the 1970s -
Blazing Saddles (1974) and
Young Frankenstein
(1974). The most 'serious' of his comedies, it uses humour (in a
similar vein to Chaplin) to lighten what would otherwise be a pretty
grim riches-to-rags morality tale of personal redemption. Yet, as
it does so, it never loses sight of the reality of what living on the
streets, with next to nothing in the way of support, is like. The
jokes are few and far between but they are strategically aimed to
deliver the maximum impact, in contrast to the scatter-gun approach
that Brooks tended to employ on his previous comedies. Just
because
Life Stinks has a
serious social message doesn't mean that it can't be funny.
To his credit, Brooks tacitly avoids the kind of gratuitous heartstring
tugging and political posturing for which Hollywood's socially oriented
movies are renowned. His wryly comical approach (as irreverent as
ever) compels us to empathise with his down-at-heel characters and
their goddam awful predicament. The jokes are great but what have
greater impact are the moments of sober reflection (such as the scene
in which a down-and-out's dead body is cleared from the street like a
piece of refuse); without labouring the point, these eloquently convey
the unending hardships and injustices experienced by those who live
rough (most of whom do so not by choice but through an abject failure
of the system).
Life Stinks
may lack the inspired comedic touch of Mel Brooks's earlier films, but
it makes up for this by telling a humane story in a way that can hardly
fail to move us and which may possibly help to nudge us in the
direction of a more civilised society. Contrary to what its title
may suggest, this is Brooks's most life-affirming film, and one that
definitely demands a fresh reappraisal.
© James Travers 2011
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Mel Brooks film:
Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)
Film Synopsis
Goddard Bolt is an unscrupulous, insanely wealthy businessman who would
not think twice about bulldozing the Brazilian rainforest to expand his
business empire. His immediate ambitions are more modest - to
clear a large slum area in Los Angeles and build in its place a modern
city complex. Before he can do this, he must first persuade
rival entrepreneur Vance Crasswell to sell him his half of the land in
the slum. Unfortunately, Crasswell also wants to develop
the site for profit and so cons his competitor into accepting a wager
which he knows he cannot win. Bolt must spend thirty days in the
slum, living as a down-and-out, without money and any outside
assistance. Confident he will win the bet, Bolt accepts but soon
discovers that living on the streets is much harder than he imagined...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.